For university students, professors and instructors in Toronto, the start of a new academic year is generally associated with excitement and some jitters, but not the threat of death. Last week, the University of Toronto was at the center of media attention when serious threats of violence were posted online, targeting both female faculty and students at the university.

In his latest editorial, The Globe and Mail‘s Marcus Gee argues that responses by the university’s administration, students, faculty and unions were disproportionate to the gravity of the threats, deeming them “excessive.”

But Gee fundamentally misses the point, dismissing the experience of women in a society that constantly reminds us of the “potential” for violence against women everywhere.

As graduate students in one of the two departments named in the threats (Sociology and Women and Gender Studies), it should be no surprise that we were alarmed and worried for our physical safety. The spectre of the anti-feminist shooting at l’École Polytechnique still haunts university students and faculty 25 years later.

What is more disturbing, moreover, is that we live in a moment where gendered violence is downplayed to such a degree that responses to it are met with incredulity or eye-rolling disdain. Let’s not forget that in almost every school shooting in North America, including Columbine, Isla Vista and Dawson College, there were warning signs prior to the incidents that people failed to take seriously. Those who make light of violence against women and label responses to it as “overreaction” shed light on why we need feminism more than ever today.

Women are regularly advised to be personally responsible for avoiding gendered violence — monitoring the clothing they wear and where they walk at night for fear of provoking attack. It wasn’t long ago that a police constable responded to violent sexual attacks and robberies at York University by advising female students to “avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Women’s experiences are devalued when we tell them they could have avoided assault or they are being too sensitive to threats of attack. Regardless of whether these threats were realized, the recent online threats issued against feminists at UofT were understood within the context of all-too real historical and contemporary gendered violence. This isn’t fear-mongering; the most recent Statistics Canada data tells us that half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. Alarmingly, the Canadian Government has not collected data on sexual harassment or sexual assault since 1993, so this figure could be even higher today.

To top it off, Gee mischaracterizes UofT’s response to these threats. While the university had information regarding similar targets online back in June, its email alerts did not inform the university community about the gendered nature of the threats or the identified departments until after teaching-assistant union CUPE 3902 and Reddit made this information public. Following police advice meant to avoid escalating public anxiety and potential copycat crimes, university administration held on to information about the most recent threats for five days after they were published. Yet failing to provide specific, timely information to students and faculty actually increased anxiety, rather than lessening it.

Denying the severity of these threats and the subjective impact they have on the day-to-day experience of the university community also denies the unique heightened climate of “potential” violence that women face each day.

Further, some students feel that an increased police presence on campus does not make them safer, but instead increases their risk of exposure to violence of another sort. In particular, women who are racialized, Indigenous, queer and trans, and who have a precarious citizenship status may experience the police as a source of danger, harassment or violence, as evidenced by the Toronto police practice of racial profiling and disproportionately carding people of colour.

The recent, student-driven demonstrations at UofT to protest misogyny and violence against women were not merely stirring up a “fretful state of agitation.” Nor were York University students when they responded to a police officer’s comments about their clothing by organizing SlutWalk — now a global social movement. Collective action reminds us that feminism remains current and very necessary in a world where gendered threats are brushed aside as “strange goings-on.”

Feminist protest serves to build a stronger grassroots community among people of all genders working against misogyny and in solidarity against all forms of oppression.

This op-ed is the collective work of a group of graduate students from the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, one of the two departments directly targeted by the online threats.

I’m admittedly a little late to this party – Finding Vivian Maier has been out so long that it’s sure to be on Netflix any minute now. But it’s better to discover a gem late than never, isn’t it?

Film poster for Finding Vivian Maier

Finding Vivian Maier starts with an improbable story. Chicago resident John Maloof buys a few storage containers’ worth of undeveloped film at an auction, hoping to find photographs to illustrate a historical book about Chicago that he’s writing. He inadvertently discovers a supremely talented and prolific street photographer, and sets out to discover everything he can about this anonymous creative genius.

This is the premise of Finding Vivian Maier; the documentary then follows Maloof through months of research, as he sets out to find the photographer behind these breathtaking pictures. As the audience watches Maloof slowly pieces together the story of Vivian Maier: an intensely guarded nanny of mysterious origins who somehow, without any formal training, took photographs that rival those of the most celebrated street photographers. Maier never married or had children, and passed away shortly before Maloof purchased her remaining work.

The film is more of a character sketch than a sociological analysis—and, Maier is certainly a character worth sketching. We learn about her through interviews with her neighbours, acquaintances (anyone who’s seen the film will hesitate to say friends), former employers, and charges. She is wholly devoted to the art of photography. It’s clear that she works as a nanny to pay the bills; she resents the time that her job takes away from her first love, and frequently takes the children she cares for on “nature walks” that are really just an excuse for her to take pictures. The people who knew Maier describe her as eccentric to the point of being ornery and reclusive.

Even though the film’s directors don’t really engage in sociological analysis, the film provides rich well of sociological material. As a case study of a fairly atypical woman artist, Maier’s life history clearly illuminates many of the challenges that are common to creative women. Finding Vivian Maier shows us what happens when a woman behaves like a stereotypically tortured and temperamental creative genius. Many of her traits—an all-consuming devotion to art, eccentricity, reclusivity—are normal for artists. But, they are far more acceptable in men than in women.

Most notable is that before Maloof’s serendipitous purchase, no one preserved Maier’s legacy—not her employers, her family, or her charges. Gladys and Kurt Lang’s famous 1990 article asks why some artists’ reputations, and not others’, survive. One of the factors they highlight is that men are more likely than women to have their legacies memorialized because their wives and daughters do significant preservationist work, donating their body of work to museums and organizing retrospective shows. Maier, like most women artists, had no one to do this preservationist work.

Maier’s story, then, is a fascinating deviant case that prompts many ‘what if’ questions. What would happen if more creative women felt free to be as tortured and temperamental as many men artists? What would happen to women’s artistic legacies if more people were willing to document and preserve them? What would have happened to Maier’s legacy if Maloof hadn’t bid on those storage bins? Or if he had lacked the cultural knowledge and resources to recognize the value of her photographs? Or, if he had lacked the social, cultural, and financial resources to create a documentary, publish a book, and mount multiple artistic exhibitions to bring her story to light?

Maier’s body of work is now getting the recognition that it and she deserve, in part thanks to this film. The real value of this film, however, isn’t in what it can teach us about its subject. The value is in the questions this film raises about how many other Vivian Maiers, past and present, are still waiting for someone to find their storage bins.

]]>Book Corner: Gender Failure, by Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyotehttp://www.csa-scs.ca/files/webapps/csapress/culture/2015/07/14/book-corner-gender-failure-by-rae-spoon-and-ivan-e-coyote/
Tue, 14 Jul 2015 04:32:15 +0000http://www.csa-scs.ca/files/webapps/csapress/culture/?p=62Continue reading →]]>Welcome back to Book Corner, an irregularly scheduled feature where I (and any other Culture Cluster members who want to share what they’ve been reading) review books from off the beaten path—or at least, from outside the academy—that we might not otherwise hear of.

I recently finished Gender Failure, by Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote. This highly engaging and enjoyable read is a series of first-person essays written by two artists: an indie/folk/electronic musician (Spoon) and a storyteller (Coyote). Through a narrative non-fiction format, Spoon and Coyote ruminate on how being “gender failures”—that is, people with non-binary gender identities— has shaped both their personal lives and artistic practice.

Spoon and Coyote deftly describe the daily reality of living as non-binary artists: being mis-gendered, having to establish their gender identities with medical authorities, coworkers, and family members, navigating sexism and judgement even within queer communities, and figuring out how to present themselves to audiences and media.

Gender Failure will interest sociologists studying either gender or culture. One of the book’s greatest strengths is that Spoon and Coyote treat both their gender and artistic identities as fluid rather than fixed. Throughout the course of the book, readers see Spoon develop from a tomboy, to a lesbian, to a trans man, to rejecting available categories altogether and developing their* own gender identity: “retired from gender.” There are subtle but wonderful parallels with Spoon’s artistic identity: they spend significant time trying to wedge themselves into recognizable genres and jumping at any available performance opportunity, but eventually move beyond those genres and spaces, which quickly become constraining.

Many of the essays in Gender Failure would make great additions to an introductory Sociology of Gender syllabus. Spoon and Coyote patiently walk readers through many Gender 101 points: sex, gender, and sexuality are all different; not all trans people take hormones or have surgery; the entire concept of a gender binary is questionable at best. And, there is incredible value in letting non-binary people speak for themselves rather than assigning dry, academic texts about gender fluidity written from an outsider’s perspective.

Although it is less explicitly stated than the critical analysis of sex and gender, Gender Failure also has a lot to say about the implications of non-conformity in artistic practice. The authors raise important questions about how to navigate disclosure as public figures, how to manage abusive social media commentary, how to decide exactly how queer they can be with which audiences, and how to deal with media industries that are not equipped to talk about non-binary gender identities. Reading this book certainly shatters any lingering illusions of creative communities as tolerant and accepting havens.

The most moving parts of this book, though, are not academic at all. They are small moments of connection with family, with an upstairs neighbour who is clearly still loved and missed, and with budding butch and transgender teenagers met at shows, and through happenstance. They are moments of realization that the authors are not failing at gender; the gender system fails them.

*both Spoon and Coyote state that their preferred pronoun is the singular “they.”

Welcome back for a special installment of Book Corner (temporarily rebranded as Film Corner), an irregularly scheduled feature that reviews sociologically engaging works from outside the academy. Toronto recently hosted the 2015 Hot Docs documentary film festival, which previews many of the insightful and culturally relevant documentaries that will emerge onto the Canadian market in the coming months.

Love Between the Covers and Foodiesprovide an insider’s view of two different culture industries, one well-established (romance fiction) and one nascent (elite food blogging). Both films achieve an impressive level of access to high-profile actors and normally unseen spaces. Love takes us into editorial meetings, cover shoots, and pitching sessions at romance conventions, asking how the modern romance publishing industry works. Foodies follows elite, jet-set food bloggers into the kitchens of 3-star Michelin restaurants where most of us couldn’t even land a reservation, and on gastronomic trips around the world to eat at the globe’s top restaurants.

Both films largely let the subjects speak for themselves and analyze their own experiences rather than using voiceovers or fact-filled title screens to construct a strong directorial viewpoint. The minimalist directorial voice is much more successful in Love than in Foodies, primarily because the subjects are highly articulate, thoughtful, and informed about the state of the romance fiction industry. The film starts with a paradox: romance is by far the most profitable genre of modern fiction, but romance authors are among the least-respected writers. In addition to directly addressing sexism in the romance industry, the novelists that director Laurie Kahn interviews make some great sociological critiques about the constructed nature of genre, conventions, and reader expectations; Nora Roberts says (paraphrased) “if I read a mystery and didn’t find out who the killer was by the end, I’d be pissed. Is that formulaic? No, it’s a reader expectation. So why is it formulaic when characters in a romance live happily ever after?”

The subjects in Love—mostly romance writers, but also publishers, assistants, and fans—touch on an entire gamut of social issues surrounding romance publishing: sexism, stigma, getting established as a new author, the rise of e-books, what readers do with romance novels, how authors interact with readers, the expansion of the romance market to accommodate infinite niches and subgenres, tension between art and commerce, and more. This film feels like a welcome update to Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance, with the focus shifted away from readers and toward writers and the publishing industry.

While the light directorial touch works well in Love, Foodies would benefit from a stronger directorial voice. By the end, it’s still unclear whether the filmmakers intend to critique the 5 jet-set food bloggers that they profile, or simply document their existence. There are certainly benefits to simple description. Jet-set food bloggers are a small and emerging group with a growing influence on the field of fine dining; yet, most of us know little about who they are or what they do.

Still, Foodies ignores some important (and, frankly, low-hanging) analytical and critical points. The bloggers come across as largely unaware of or unconcerned with the broader culinary field within which they’re situated—except as this affects where they want to eat next. They don’t ask themselves (nor do the filmmakers seem to ask them) what it means to be a self-appointed critic, how they establish and defend their legitimacy as tastemakers, or who their audiences are. The only analysis of the context in which elite bloggers are situated comes through shots of a few chefs complaining that jet-set bloggers have no formal food education and don’t actually know very much about food, yet still wield enormous critical power.

Foodies also drags a bit, due to multiple drawn-out shots of subjects staring silently off into space while waiting for their food, or pausing in contemplation after taking a bite. At times, it was as uncomfortable as sitting across the table from someone who’s eating while you’re not. Love, on the other hand, is appropriately paced and quite watchable.

Love is a great choice for cultural sociologists in general, either for classroom use or background information on the romance publishing industry. Foodies might work in the classroom as well, but I would recommend it only if the instructor is prepared to foster significant critical discussion and ask the questions that the film doesn’t.

Welcome to a new and irregularly scheduled feature on the CSA Culture Cluster blog: Book Corner, where I (and any other cluster members who would like to share what they’ve been reading) will highlight interesting and sociologically insightful books that are relevant to a cultural sociology audience, but that we might not be aware of for various reasons; perhaps because they’re primarily marketed to other fields or disciplines, or written by authors outside the academy.

The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, by Stephen Apkon (2013, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is one such book. Apkon is a filmmaker, educator, and founder and former director of the Jacob Burns Film Center. Apkon’s purpose in The Age of the Image is to expand our understanding of the concept of “literacy.” He argues that literacy is not only the ability to read; it’s overall fluency in communication. This certainly requires skills that we already recognize as literacy, such as knowledge of language, grammar, and syntax. But, it also includes much more, specifically an understanding of genre and conventions; that is, what forms of language, tones, and other stylistic elements of communication are appropriate for which contexts. This, of course, is a fundamentally sociological insight: that fluency is genre is part of overall fluency.

But, it’s Apkon’s concept of visual literacy and his discussion of the language of film that cultural sociologists will find most compelling. He argues that film has a grammar and syntax in which most Westerners are literate, despite the fact that most of us don’t recognize film as a form of language. For example, when we see interspersed shots of two people who appear to be speaking into (or looking past) the camera, we “see” a conversation even if the camera angles show no actual interaction. When we see a lingering shot of a landscape that segues into an indoor action sequence, we understand that the landscape is the setting where that action takes place. These interpretations are obvious to us, but that’s precisely the point; they are obvious because they are socially learned, just like any other language.

Apkon illustrates this view of visual literacy by referencing research on “video virgins,” or people who had seen photographs, but never film, as well as a number of studies on social psychology and cognition to highlight differences in how we process words and images. Overall, Apkon makes a compelling case for viewing visual cognition as, first, more social than we realize and, second, subtly different from verbal cognition.

The Age of the Image isn’t directed at sociologists – or at least, it’s not directed at only sociologists. Apkon makes it clear that he wants readers to understand visual literacy so they will become better visual communicators. He dedicates an entire chapter to discussing different types of camera shots, what they communicate, and when filmmakers might want to use them. His purpose is obviously to inspire us all to pick up our own cameras and start uploading Youtube videos.

That’s a noble goal, but it also suggests the book’s biggest weakness. Apkon veers into overly optimistic territory, implicitly proclaiming that anyone can produce a viral video if only they’re literate in visual grammar. By focusing only on production and ignoring distribution (i.e. how films, Youtube videos, TV news, and other forms of visual communication get to audiences), Apkon elides an important point: in theory any video can go viral, but in practice only a tiny percentage do. He analyzes a number of viral videos, highlighting particularly ‘literate’ moments that contributed to their success, but ends up sampling on the dependent variable; he says little, for example, about similarly literate videos that didn’t go viral.

Still, this book (or at least, the first half of it) delves into key sociological questions about what it means to be visually and culturally literate in the modern world, and is well worth a read.

Fashion design is an occupation where women far outnumber men, yet there is a widespread perception that gay men are the most successful. Scholars, journalists, and industry insiders have all commented on how gay men (e.g. Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs) are “media darlings,” win more awards, and have more prestigious jobs. Why is this the case?

On the one hand, gay men’s successes in fashion design are cause for celebration. LGBTQ people have historically faced discrimination and disadvantages in the broader labor market, but fashion is one of a few creative fields considered more or less “gay friendly,” and it employs large numbers of gay men. However, recent research finds that even “gay friendly” workplaces can reproduce old stereotypes and inequalities between gay and straight, men and women. And since fashion design is numerically dominated by women, the success of men designers is suggestive of gender inequality.

In my research I gathered data on prestigious fashion design awards and design canons. I found that men, in particular gay men, received far more awards than women and were more likely to appear in canonical lists of elite fashion designers. Next, I conducted a qualitative content analysis of: (1) Vogue’s online Voguepedia, an influential design canon that profiles elite designers; and (2) articles about fashion designers in fashion media, including newspaper style sections, industry websites, and blogs.

I found that there were sharp differences between the representation of men and women in fashion design, and that the value of designers and their designs were constructed using discourses of art and culture that rely on gender essentialism. These discourses construct a masculinized image of the “ideal” designer.

Accounts in Voguepedia and broader fashion media construct a definition of what a fashion designer should be. Specifically, the “ideal designer” (1) has autonomy from economic pressures and retains authorship and control over the design process; (2) has an artistic orientation toward design and “works of art” that display creative genius; (3) is committed to cultural production above outside responsibilities, including immersion in fashion and culture scenes; and (4) produces designs that are authentic representations of individual creativity. Importantly, men were far more often described in these ways.

Women were more often represented as subordinate to economic interests and preferences of consumers whom they serve, oriented toward practical rather than artistic design, and as being torn between fashion and family commitments. Women’s designs were also more often portrayed as authentic representations of their womanhood rather than their individual creativity, with a “woman’s perspective” described in ways that essentialize gender difference and homogenize women.

I explain these inequalities by developing the notion of a glass runway, a concept building on Christine Williams’ work on the glass escalator. But where the glass escalator focuses on economic advantages of men who do “women’s work,” the glass runway focuses on the symbolic mechanisms that shape inequality at work. There are no objective measures of value in culture and there is little consensus about how to measure the worth or contributions of individual cultural producers. Instead, forms of culture such as film, music, and fashion are attributed value through social processes. Tastemakers, such as media and industry organizations, play an especially important role in these processes, choosing which people and products to feature and how they will be represented. Under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity, people tend to fall back in convention and stereotypes. The ambiguity and uncertainty involved in valorizing art and culture enables gender stereotypes to seep into discourses used in evaluating cultural producers and their products. As a result, men cultural producers are pushed forward and outward, into the spotlight, as though walking a glass runway.

Fashion design is a particularly useful case for developing an understanding of how gender intersects with other inequalities to shape cultural value. In fashion design, we see gender and sexuality intersect to create a double edge of valorization and blame for gay men designers. They benefit from the masculine image of the ideal cultural producer, but their success is limited to fashion as a space that exists within a broader context of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity. I found that they remain vulnerable, for example, to homophobic discrimination from the outside.

It is likely that race and ethnicity matter a great deal as well, both in fashion, and in other fields. Even a cursory look at the lists of award recipients and Voguepedia profiles shows a lack of racial diversity among elite designers, and a particular absence of consecration for black designers. In addition, because evaluations in the media focus on fashion design as an individual process of creativity, the contributions of garment workers who make many designers’ visions into reality is obscured. It is not coincidental that most garment workers are racial and ethnic minorities in North America and Europe, or workers in overseas factories in countries such as China and Bangladesh, who often labor under poor conditions.

Given the great deal of gender inequality found in other cultural occupations and industries, as well as a consistent emphasis on values of autonomy and authorship, art, commitment, and authenticity, the glass runway concept may be useful for understanding other culture industries (e.g. film, cuisine, music) and similar contexts where reputations are crucial to success (e.g. academia, politics).

The Sony hacking scandal of 2014 has Americans talking about gender inequality. One of the notorious leaked emails revealed that the two female stars of the film American Hustle, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, earned less back-end compensation for the film than their male co-stars, Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper (7% versus 9%). This despite the fact that all four actors are comparable in terms of star power, critical acclaim, and award nominations for their performances.

Information also came to light about a pay gap between top executives. Among the 17 Sony employees whose salaries topped 1 million dollars, there is only one woman – Hannah Minghella, Co-president of Production at Columbia Pictures. Even more striking is the fact that Minghella earns much less than her co-president, Michael Deluca, a man with the exact same job title. While Deluca’s salary is 2.4 million, Minghella earns 1.5 million annually.

Unfortunately, the case of Sony pictures is just one example of a larger pattern of gender inequality in the cultural economy. According to Ashley Mears, the cultural economy is comprised of all sectors that “cater to consumer demands for ornamentation, amusement, self-affirmation, and social display,” including industries such as art, fashion, film, and music. These culture industries offer products that have not only utility functions, but contain great aesthetic or semiotic content and provide status and identity to consumers. With few exceptions, men possess ownership and control over the production and distribution of culture, and typically occupy the highest paying and most prestigious positions in culture industries.

Although we have no holistic account of what causes these gender disparities, several factors have been found to be associated with the underrepresentation or devaluation of women.

First, women can experience discrimination at the point of job entry and promotion. Sometimes this is because jobs and positions associated with more control, autonomy, technical skills, and prestige, are stereotyped as “masculine.” The construction of the role of music producer as an occupation with autonomy and control for example, may certainly contribute to the fact that only about 5% of all music producers are women.

Second, women are also sometimes typecast into subfields and specializations that are less lucrative and lower in status. For example, sociologists Mark Banks and Katie Milestone found that in the new media sector, women were excluded from creative and technical roles and placed in support or administrative positions deemed more feminine. Women screenwriters are also often typecast into writing for “women’s films” and passed over for opportunities in genres such as action and adventure, as evidenced by the work of sociologists Denise D. Bielby and William T. Bielby.

Third, networks can also be a barrier for women. Networking is a key route to success because it builds contacts and helps identify job opportunities. In the cultural economy, a great deal of work gets performed, and decisions made, outside the office during social times (e.g. in bars or restaurants). Research shows that in many fields of work the most powerful networks are often male-dominated and revolve around stereotypically masculine activities so women are often excluded or alienated from these “boys clubs.” This is no less true in cultural production. The reputations and careers of female musicians, for example, have suffered because of fewer ties to artistic circles and exclusion from male-dominated networks. Even the representation of network ties by the media can be gendered. For instance, as Brenda Johnson-Grau demonstrates in a chapter in Steve Jones’ Pop Music and the Press, female musicians are usually only compared to other female musicians, not musicians generally.

Fourth is the issue of work-family relations. Cultural work is associated with intensive schedules, and long and irregular hours. Since women continue to bear the brunt of responsibility for childcare, domestic labor, and the organization of family life, this lifestyle can create barriers for working mothers. In their research on chefs, sociologists Deborah H. Harris and Patti Giuffre show how long and irregular hours can force women to make tough choices, such as leaving the field, delaying or forgoing parenthood, switching to jobs with more standard hours (which not coincidentally usually offer lower status and visibility), or attempting to balance work and family, usually with great stress and guilt.

Fifth, family responsibilities have also been used as justification for women’s exclusion from particular fields and subfields. For example, while art was traditionally seen as an appropriate hobby for middle and upper class women, it was deemed an inappropriate career that could interfere with one’s “womanly duties” in the home.

Sixth, organizational mechanisms also have an impact on gender inequality. For instance, Bielby and Bielby show that in Hollywood the shift from a studio system with long-term contracts to a more loosely structure system where screenwriters were hired for specific projects had a negative impact on women’s representation among screenwriters. As well, Banks and Milestone argue that organizational characteristics of industries involved in cultural production can hamper efforts to promote equality: Because these industries emphasize creativity and individual talent, measures such as equal opportunity legislation, collective representation, and anti-discrimination policies are considered constraining and inappropriate.

Finally, symbolic mechanisms are important. When considering gender inequality among cultural producers, we must account for gender gaps in symbolic measures of success, such as media attention, critical appraisal, and awards. My own research on fashion design shows that discourses used by fashion media and other tastemakers to represent designers are highly gendered. Women are less likely to be represented in ways that match the traditional image of the ideal cultural producer (i.e. autonomous, artistic, devoted, and authentic). Sociologists Vaughn Schmutz and Alison Faupel found similar processes at play in the consecration of rock musicians. In my article, I argue that the ambiguous and uncertain nature of cultural value provides opportunities for biases and stereotypes to seep into the discourses that tastemakers use to represent cultural producers, reproducing the masculine image of the artist or creative genius.

Decades ago, art historian Linda Nochlin responded to the question, “why have there been no great women artists?” by arguing that women are no less creative, talented, or skilled than men, but that socially constructed definitions of greatness in art and culture discriminate against women. Unfortunately, this continues to hold true in a variety of cultural fields and occupations. The gender inequalities revealed by the Sony hacking scandal have kindled public outrage about gender discrimination, and should serve as renewed inspiration for organizational sociologists studying workplace inequality among cultural producers.

]]>Managing conflict and rewards in postbureaucratic work environments: The case of songwritershttp://www.csa-scs.ca/files/webapps/csapress/culture/2015/03/13/managing-conflict-and-rewards-in-postbureaucratic-work-environments-the-case-of-songwriters/
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 18:00:34 +0000http://www.csa-scs.ca/files/webapps/csapress/culture/?p=42Continue reading →]]>*This was originally posted at Work in Progress*

By Kim de Laat

Postbureaucratic work environments are flexible, project-based settings characterized by consensus-building. They are often hailed as an improvement over the rigid job hierarchies and inflexible working conditions found in most white collar and manufacturing sectors.

Unlike traditional forms of product manufacturing, postbureaucratic work settings, such independent contracting, website design and film projects, can involve a creative process that is unpredictable. The final output is often the result of decision-making processes that are negotiated on the fly (for example, Robert De Niro’s improvisation of the line, “You talkin’ to me?” in Taxi Driver or the Beatles’ use of some accidental feedback at the beginning of ‘I Feel Fine’). In addition, the temporary nature of much postbureaucratic work, particularly in creativeindustries, creates uncertainty. One’s next paycheck is never guaranteed, and so there is a constant need to pursue work opportunities. It falls on the individual to maintain relationships and ties that can lead to future job opportunities. An unruly creative process and the individualization of risk means that teamwork and cooperation are especially important in postbureaucratic work projects.

In a forthcoming article in the sociology journal Work & Occupations I examine an interesting subset of postbureaucratic workers, songwriters. The role of the professional songwriter is in flux. Both popular media and the songwriters I interviewed suggest that songwriters are not getting their fair share. Often performing artists — the stars whose face and voice we typically associate with a hit song — insist on being present in songwriting sessions and receiving a share of royalties even when they contribute little. In addition, the popularity of computerized sounds from production software such as Pro Tools has led to the rise of the producer/writer hybrid, with whom songwriters must now compete for royalties.

More and more fans are listening to music on streaming websites such as Spotify and Pandora, but streaming website royalty payouts are notoriously meager, with songwriters earning less than $0.01 per stream. For example, Ellen Shipley, co-writer of ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ disclosed that her quarterly earnings for a song that was streamed more than 3 million times was less than $40. In short, songwriters are confronting increasing competition and decreasing revenue.

At the same time, songwriters are accustomed to working under conditions of uncertainty. In addition to constantly chasing the next opportunity for collaboration (songwriters almost always write in groups of two and three), the distribution of tasks varies from one project to the next. Sometimes a songwriter’s job is separated from that of her collaborators, such as when she is tasked with supplying only the lyrics and melody of a song. Other times they collaborate on all aspects of a song. From project to project, working arrangements change and songwriters must remain adaptable.

Because of the challenges — producers encroaching on royalties, performing artists or other writing partners taking credit where credit is not due — and the constant change they experience, songwriters’ working arrangements provide valuable insight into how conflict and rewards are managed amidst ongoing uncertainty.

To learn more about this, I completed in-depth interviews with 30 professional songwriters living in cities such as Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York, who specialize in all manner of popular genres (pop, rock, R&B, rap, and country). The interviews revealed that songwriters are oriented towards maximizing their professional and economic interests, but they do so in a surprising way. Rather than being combative over credits and royalties, songwriters actively pursue cooperation. They maintain two conventions in particular: (1) equal authorship and (2) professional conciliation.

First, when asked how royalty percentages (referred to as ‘splits’) are decided, every songwriter responded that they should be divided equally regardless of individual contribution. The common adage is that if there are three songwriters in the room, each one receives one third of the royalties: “write a word, get a third”. This convention is motivated by a pay it forward mentality. Many songwriters remarked that it’s difficult to be consistently ‘on’ in writing sessions. One day you might contribute more than your share, while on another day you might not be as productive. Maintaining even splits regardless of contribution helps alleviate the guilt felt on those days when one doesn’t contribute her fair share to the writing process.

Second, uncertainty motivates songwriters to be conciliatory toward writing partners. Because songwriters never know in advance which of their work projects will be successful, they don’t want to risk damaging relationships by quarreling over who deserves more credit. Songwriters are willing to accommodate a decrease in immediate rewards if it means maintaining positive working relationships which may generate further payoff in the future. In the face of jurisdictional conflict with producers and performing artists, uncertainty is mitigated by acquiescing in order to bank on future collaborations.

This research finds that conflict and cooperation are mutually reinforcing in the postbureaucratic work arrangement of songwriters: confronting conflict with cooperation ultimately leads to new work opportunities, where conflict must once again be navigated.

When trying to make sense of strategies pursued by people working in contexts of ongoing uncertainty, it is helpful to develop a more nuanced understanding of what constitutes rational, utility-maximizing behaviour. For songwriters, the rational course of action might seem to be competitive and self-interested given the conflict they face and the short-term nature of working relationships. But in actuality working arrangements recur and long-term relationships are sought, which motivates conciliatory practices.

While some suggest that postbureaucratic work marks a departure from the rationalistic working conditions of traditional bureaucratic settings, this study supports more recent findings that postbureaucratic work organizations can also be typified by rational, utility maximizing behaviour. In some respects, then, postbureaucratic work settings are similar to traditional bureaucratic forms of organizing. But they differ because all risks assumed are individualized. It is up to songwriters themselves to nurture relationships and determine whether they can afford, both in terms of finances and reputation, to be undersold when they confront conflict and uncertainty.

And unlike traditional bureaucratic work environments that operate on a five-day, 40-hour workweek schedule, the temporary work of songwriters operates along two temporal dimensions: the immediate work context of the project-of-the-day, in which interpersonal challenges must be negotiated, and a long-term trajectory in which songwriting partners envision future collaborations. Action is thus tailored in light of more immediate interpersonal challenges to facilitate future rewards. Equal authorship and conciliation mediate tensions between present-day conflict and desires for future success. In a work setting where uncertainty is ongoing, such conventions allow jurisdictional challenges and social loafing to be accommodated, and rewards to be distributed in a manner deemed fair.

Whether you’re channel surfing or browsing in a bookstore, it’s hard to ignore the presence of celebrity chefs and the cultural objects they produce across a variety of platforms. While we think of a chef as someone who has been formally trained to cook in a professional capacity, the celebrity chef may be an amateur cook. The common thread between these media personalities is that they provide instruction and entertainment on cooking and food-competition programs.

Celebrity chefs exist at a nexus of culture, media and fame. Their food-related personalities are created and elevated in the media and their image takes on a value much like a brand. As celebrities, they are also vehicles for social meanings. A celebrity conveys – either directly or indirectly – social values, such as the meaning of work, and achievement, or the definition of gendered and racialized beliefs.

Historians tell us that certain chefs have had a degree of fame since as far back as the 16th century, but today’s chefs are distinguished by the significance of celebrity culture which is exceptionally visual, personal, and is transmitted at an increasingly rapid pace through many different forms of media including books, television, magazines, newspapers and social media. Today we not only know what kind of food Jamie Oliver cooks, but we may even know about his skiing holiday with friends or that he wants an “intimate tattoo” for his 40th birthday.

One of the first television hosts in North America was Julia Child, who had a famous PBS show called, “The French Chef”. What distinguishes historic figures (like Julia Child) from the current slate of cooking personalities is that the former were far more focused on instructional cooking. Things began to change in the 1990s with the arrival of Emeril, and his trademark showmanship style of cooking, which happened in front of a live studio audience. Suddenly, it was no longer enough to stand behind a stovetop and instruct. The new goal was more explicitly about entertaining.

Today’s cooking personalities offer recipes and instruction about cooking techniques, but they also provide an emphasis on their idealized lifestyles and personalities. In 1961, Julia Child’s debut cookbook was titled, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” while forty years later, Nigella Lawson’s debut was more ambitious: “How to be a Domestic Goddess”. People watch Nigella Lawson not just to learn about how to make a specific dish, but to admire her lifestyle, her attractiveness, and her beautiful home.

Another quality that differentiates today’s food celebrity landscape is the scale on which it exists. Even with the proliferation of television channels, Food Network still draws in a considerable viewership. It is watched nightly by millions of viewers and consistently ranks in the top ten cable networks. And aside from merely attracting viewers and fans, celebrity chefs earn big. In 2012, Forbes named Gordon Ramsay and Rachael Ray as top-earning chefs, with incomes of $38 million and $25 million respectively.

The culinary world is a rich case for scholarly attention because of the increasing permeability of its boundaries. Celebrity chefs today go beyond the stereotype of the white, male French chef. On Food Network and in bookstores, you will find women, people of colour, multicultural cuisines, home cooks and highbrow to lowbrow food. Men like Jamie Oliver are also entering the domestic kitchens, and bringing new symbolic capital to home cooking (just as women enter professional kitchens).

Yet, researchtells us that home-cooking is still traditionally gendered as women’s work while in the public realm of the restaurant kitchen, the professional chef has long been considered a male role.

To do this, we drew on the cultural sociology concept of “producer personas”, or in this case, “culinary personas”. Sociologist Patti Lynne Donze tells us that personas are “fabricated” identities that draw upon shared conventions of “biography, style, and attitude” to emotionally engage others. We can think of a persona as a kind of human brand. The fabricated quality, however, is not synonymous with falseness. A celebrity chef may genuinely love food in both their public and private life. In a Goffmanian sense, the sociological point we are making is that actors perform different versions of the “self” depending on the “role” required. Personas can’t simply be made up out of thin air. They draw from existing cultural ideas about race, class, gender and so forth.

In the case of culinary personas, celebrity chefs strategically emphasize certain features of their personality to differentiate themselves from other celebrity chefs.However, their personas tend to congregate in a fixed number of categories. This is similar to research on musical personas – there are only a certain number of genres available. So our goal in this paper was to figure out what culinary personas were present in the world of celebrity chefs, and whether women and minorities had equal access to these culinary personas

To operationalize our research question, we conducted a discourse analysis of cookbooks by chefs who hosted television programs on major networks. From this reading, we were able to identify 7 culinary personas, 3 of which exhibit traditionally feminine characteristics (homebody, home stylist, pin-up), and 4 that exhibited elements of hegemonic masculinity (chef-artisan, maverick, gastrosexual, self-made man). These persona types reveal how gender, race, and class intersect in the creation of a persona.

By identifying these seven persona types, we learned that the realm of culinary personas is highly gendered, even though some celebrity chefs are moving across traditional gender boundaries. Professional chefs, like Jamie Oliver and Tyler Florence, do value the home kitchen. And some female chefs have risen to new heights of professional success, like Iron Chef Cat Cora.

However, traditional gendered tropes in the kitchen persist through these culinary personas. They demonstrate the continued relevance of a historic division between the relatively devalued female home-cook, and the publicly celebrated male-chef. With the exception of the gastrosexuals, women are still presenting themselves, by and large, as gate-keepers of family health and domestic cookery. In contrast culinary artists and artisans (a group made up almost exclusively of men) were depicted in masculine terms. In these ways, the status inequalities around gender are reproduced through persona conventions.

Our findings show how the structure and stratification of culinary personas has implications for the reproduction of status hierarchies. It is not just overt discrimination or prejudice that creates status inequalities. Culinary personas indirectly perpetuate inequalities in the culinary field by relying on and reproducing pre-existing sources of authority and expertise. These findings support research documenting how high status groups are more able to brand-themselves and “propertize” their identities as celebrities. Our research suggests that not all culinary roles are equally accessible to new entrants to the field, nor are all chefs equally able to move between different personas. And those with more limited options are women and racialized minorities.